Probing the Membrane of Science

A thought on anime/manga

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:36:58 GMT

I just realized that
a) there are only eight female characters in Death Note that have any dialogue or personalities and
b) that only one of them gets anything close to resembling a happy ending.

0-2

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:20:40 GMT

Two tries now, two failures.

I wonder if I'm ever going to get to try out my new Arkham Horror expansion.

And then, everybody died

Sun, 31 May 2009 08:38:07 GMT

I just finished Curse of the Crimson Throne, the long-running Paizo AP I've been running as a DM since last October.

The party go punked. Hard. Queen Ileosa Arabasti murdered them all, using enchantment magic to force the party to turn on each other and dance like puppets for her amusement.

What's frustrating is not that the party lost. It's that they lost, and it didn't have fun whilst doing so. It was a brutal slog, and everybody left all frustrated and unhappy looking. And what I like about DMing is that I get to provide entertainment and joy for my friends.

Boo.

Night Train to Mundo Fine...

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:35:52 GMT

I have a deep mental sickness.

I feel myself compelled to watch a Coleman Francis movie.

Pray for me.

Sigh

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:12:58 GMT

My latest adventure in the wonderful world of buying used games off of the internet (aka, the only time I have had such an adventure)... is not going well.

Returns, hopefully, will be had.

I'm back!

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:31:12 GMT

So, the past couple of days, I've suffered from odd minor physical maladies. I've been having trouble getting to sleep, and the sleep I've been getting hasn't been that restful. My muscles ache, especially the thighs, for no apparent reason. And last night, I discover two huge scratches--claw marks might be as accurate--on my back.

Perhaps I'm doing something in the night I don't remember to accommodate all of this. Perhaps I am a werewolf. Perhaps I am a werewolf who fights other werewolves. Perhaps this is awesome.

PS: I got into UC Davis' Entomology department. I know what I'm doing next year!

Egads, a follow-up

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:13:30 GMT

So, I submitted my application for UC Davis' Entomology program today. It should be fine. Apparently, the primary cause behind the timing is to get prospective students in the door early for fellowships, which I highly approve of.

One application down, three or four to go.

Egads!

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:19:56 GMT

So, this morning (okay, this noon), I was doing the sensible thing and preparing information for my graduate school applications. Getting addresses for letters of recommendation, that sort of thing. I check the UC Davis school of Entomology, which is a program I'm very excited about...

Only to discover that applications are due November 15th.

I had assumed that they'd be due sometime in December, which is when all of the rest of the schools are due (a few even bleed into January!). Now, they say they will accept late applications, and I can probably get things done by Tuesday or Wednesday... but that's a source of stress I wasn't looking forward to feeling today.

Vote, you bastards!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:52:18 GMT

I know I haven't updated in a long time, but I think this is worth saying, even though you've already heard it a thousand times before. This election is important. Go vote in it. I don't even care who you vote for, but...

OK. That's a lie. Vote for Obama. Vote for Nader. Vote for Barr or whoever the Peace and Freedom Party is fronting. But do not vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. A vote for the McCain/Palin ticket is a vote against women's rights. It is a vote against science. It is a vote for ignorance, racism and greed.

Oh, and if you're in California and voted "Yes" on Proposition 8, you and I are going to have words.

If you will indulge me a moment...

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:47:39 GMT

I have had roughly the same hair style since I was... six? A long time, at any rate. Which is why I'm thinking about changing it. Dying it, letting it grow out, something new.

Any suggestions?

100 Books I may or may not have read.

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:39:58 GMT

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read only six and force books upon them.

1 Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (working on it...)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (hey! that's cheating!)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I tried, I really did...)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (like the Narnia thing, I think this is cheating)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

26 out of 100. And I don't read that much fiction...

Oh No!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:17:40 GMT

There... there was a meme about kaiju... and.. and... this is what I got!

Your result for The Godzilla Personality Test!...

Jet Jaguar: The Family Values Robot

Bad News: Geez, where do I start with you, Jet Jaguar? I mean you don't have any really cool powers. You can fly, you can grow/shrink, and you have headlights for eyes. THATS IT! You have a crappy theme music, too. Sorry Jet Jaguar, you're not exactly the coolest monster/robot around...

Good News: The way you were created is actually pretty cool. There was a contest for people to send in drawings of a new monster for Toho and guess what? Some little kid sent in a drawing of you! Sadly in the movie you are created by a toymaker, but that's not important!! You're actually popular in Japan for some reason. Hm, go figure. Oh and hey, kids love you! Look don't feel bad....here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KKsVwtd0Fw&feature=related

Take The Godzilla Personality Test! at HelloQuizzy

The Very Good Taste Omnivore Challenge Meme

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:36:04 GMT

Yeah, yeah, I come back to post for a meme. I'm sorry. Here's the deal: A list of 100 foods, of which I have bolded which I have eaten.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Oh dear. I'm world-building again

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:10:59 GMT

So I was in a Paleoclimatology class this quarter, and of course, it's involved a lot of talk about global warming, specifically how we can use the past to model what's going to happen and where. Which has given me some great ideas for a near-future (say, 2100-2150) roleplaying game...

The United States: As the Earth's climate changes spun into high gear, the United States lost its position as the dominant power on the face of the Earth, but manages still to maintain strong national identity and play an important role in global politics. The United States lost its position as a dominant food exporter as the wet belts moved north: California became primarily a desert, as did much of the fields of corn in the Midwest. America adapted and thrived, however, as an exporter of energy--what were once farms now hold solar cells, nuclear plants, and Lackner units for carbon sequestration. America also remains a key player in global trade, as Seward's Folly, an ironically named city in North Alaska, is one of the busiest commercial hubs in the world, a new Singapore for goods traded through the now-open Northwest Passage.

Canada: Canada was probably the nation that benefited most from the changes global warming brought. Its fertile soils now met with ample rain, causing its agricultural economy to boom. Canada now fills a role similar to that once played by the United States in terms of food production, and the two nations are on friendly terms. Canada has stepped well into the role of world power, building its army to defend against the Russian Empire, but doing its best to minimize its interference in global conflict.

The Russian Empire: Russia's slide back into despotism was a rapid and highly successful one, and the Russian Empire has now annexed much of central Asia and Eastern Europe. Despite the illusion of centralized power, many of the outlying states are only nominally held under control by local governors. The Russian Empire's dominance is largely paid for by its exploitation of resources from the Arctic seafloor, and huge floating nuclear reactors bearing Russian flags now stud the pole. Russia's military aggressiveness is mostly behind it, although the Emperor still eyes Seward's Folly enviously.

China: China is one of the few nations left in the world that still relies primarily on fossil fuels, a fact that little endears it to the rest of the world. Its quest for resources mirrored that of Japan more than 100 years in the past, and much of Southwest Asia is either directly ruled by China or is ruled by a puppet of Chinese interests. Like Russia, its days of expansion are in the past, and the two Asian superpowers are fierce rivals. Although this war is Cold, and fought with spies, embargoes and treaties, it could potentially heat up any minute.

Return to Poké-Hell

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:52:57 GMT

Last summer, I did a lengthy post about Pokémon. Specifically, how the Pokédex, rather than being a fun-filled romp of family fun for the whole family, was in fact dark, seedy and laden with innuendo and nightmare fuel. That post can be found here.

I only covered the first 151, Pokémon that everybody knows and loves. Now, I'm reaching deeper into the Poke-Vault. So I'm providing links so non Pokéfanatics know what I'm talking about.

Bayleef
The scent of spices comes from around its neck. Somehow, sniffing it makes you want to fight. (Performance-enhancing Pokémon! For shame!)

Totodile
Despite its small body, Totodile's jaws are very powerful. While it may think it is just playfully nipping, its bite has enough strength to cause serious injury. (Remember, kids! Pokémon are adorable, playful little creatures that'll still kill you if they get the chance!)

Ariados
It attaches silk to its prey and sets it free. Later, it tracks the silk to the prey and its friends. (Your entire family is food to the Ariados. Are you sure you should have Run Away from that one two, three days ago? Maybe you should visit Mom again, just in case.)

Gligar
Gligar glides through the air without a sound as if it were sliding. This Pokémon hangs on to the face of its foe using its clawed hind legs and the large pincers on its forelegs, then injects the prey with its poison barb. (A Face-Hugger type Pokémon! At least it doesn't lay eggs in your chest)

Shuckle
Shuckle quietly hides itself under rocks, keeping its body concealed inside its hard shell while eating berries it has stored away. The berries mix with its body fluids to become a juice. (It makes its own gravy!)

Sneasel
It is extremely vicious and will not stop attacking until its foe is incapable of moving. (Yeah, kid, what the Sneasel was attacking just... fainted. Right.)

Miltank
In order to milk a Miltank, one must have a knack for rhythmically pulling up and down on its udders. (No comment)

Linoone
Linoone always runs full speed and only in straight lines. If facing an obstacle, it makes a right-angle turn to evade it. This Pokémon is very challenged by gently curving roads. (Poor stupid, stupid creature. Another contender for "too stupid to live")

Beautifly
It has an aggressive nature. It stabs prey with its long, narrow mouth to drain the prey's fluids. (Ah... Pokémon. The only childrens' game with multiple references to draining bodily fluids...)

Cascoon
Encased within its tough cocoon, it endures attacks. It never forgets the appearance of its foes. (What does the Cascoon do? The Cascoon watches...)

Sableye
Sableye lead quiet lives deep inside caverns. They are feared, however, because these Pokémon are thought to steal the spirits of people when their eyes burn with a sinister glow in the darkness. (I'll swallow yer soul!)

Spoink
Spoink bounces around on its tail. The shock of its bouncing makes its heart pump. As a result, this Pokémon cannot afford to stop bouncing - if it stops, its heart will stop. (Poor, hideously deformed Spoink.)

Cacturne
If a traveler is going through a desert in the thick of night, Cacturne will follow in a ragtag group. The Pokémon are biding their time, waiting for the traveler to tire and become incapable of moving. (The image of a lone desert traveler slowly succumbing to thirst and fatigue, while being stalked by an army of shambling cactus-men with murder on their minds is a genuinely chilling one)

Shuppet
Shuppet is attracted by feelings of jealousy and vindictiveness. If someone develops strong feelings of vengeance, this Pokémon will appear in a swarm and line up beneath the eaves of that person's home.

Shuppet grows by feeding on dark emotions, such as vengefulness and envy, in the hearts of people. It roams through cities in search of grudges that taint people.(These guys? Really, really creepy.)

Banette
An abandoned plush doll became this Pokémon. They are said to live in garbage dumps and wander about in search of the children that threw them away. (Most likely, in order to murder them.)

Duskull
Duskull wanders lost among the deep darkness of midnight. There is an oft-told admonishment given to misbehaving children that this Pokémon will spirit away bad children who earn scoldings from their mothers.(How whimsical! In the words of Crow T. Robot, "remember to believe in magic... or I'll kill you!")

Gorebyss
A Gorebyss siphons the body fluids of prey through its thin, tubular mouth. Its light pink body color turns vivid when it finishes feeding.(Delightfully accurate for a deep-sea, transparent blood feeder. Also, mention No. 3 of draining bodily fluids!)

Bagon
Bagon has a dream of one day soaring in the sky. In doomed efforts to fly, this Pokémon hurls itself off cliffs. As a result of its dives, its head has grown tough and as hard as tempered steel.(Remember to live your dreams, children! Even if it means severe head trauma!)

Metagross
Metagross is the result of two Metang achieving fusion. When hunting, this Pokémon pins the prey to the ground under its massive body. It then eats the helpless victim using the large mouth on its stomach. (Why can't I do something that awesome in Trainer battles, then? I want to see the helpless faces of the Elite Four as my mighty Metagross sits on, then messily devours their prized Pokémon!)

Drifloon
It tugs on the hands of children to steal them away. However, it gets pulled around instead. (This one starts creepy, what with the child-snatching, but then it just fails. It's a two-fer!)

Munchlax
It hides food under its long body hair. However, it forgets it has hidden the food. (Ick)

Toxicroak
Its knuckle claws secrete a toxin so vile that even a scratch could prove fatal

Dusknoir
The antenna on its head captures radio waves from the world of spirits that command it to take people there.(I find it fitting that the Pokédex entry that inspired this whole project is the last one. Radio waves from the spirit world? There's a lot of (bizarre) world-building potential in that sentence alone. Pokéworld is a scary, scary place.)

In the Dreamtime

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:50:42 GMT

So, this morning I got up, took a shower, realized that the notes online for my 9:00 class were extensive, then went back to bed.

And I don't think I left REM sleep a single minute of that three hour "nap".

In the dreams, I was Samus Aran, the spacefaring bounty hunter from the Metroid games. I was traveling with a few friends around the world, and running into (and oftentimes away from) all sorts of weird stuff. Of what I remember, there was the tourist-trap "ghost house" in China that actually was haunted by the ghost of a werewolf (the second werewolf we'd encountered on our journey), which I successfully released to find peace and attain vengeance on those who had exploited it. I remember running through the hilly streets of San Francisco until dawn. I remember meeting a young woman on a parade and encouraging her to take up the bounty hunting lifestyle.

In the last segment of the dreams, we had come to a lovely hostel/bookstore in the mountains of Eastern Europe, and we were all looking forward to a magnificent meal, after weeks of eating on the cheap or what we had packed in the wilderness. But the place was having trouble with its cash register, and had run out of mashed potatoes.

And then I woke up.

I blame this (or at least the Samus part) on too much Smash Brothers.

My fourth phylum!

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:08:22 GMT

Alright, so I'd been thinking, which is always a bad sign.

What I'd been thinking about specifically was how little biodiversity we humans actually consume on a regular basis. When it comes to animals, everybody (at least, in the United States) only eats three phyla. Chordata is an obvious one: we eat vertebrates all the time, usually fish, mammals and reptiles (in the form of birds). I'm got a bit of a leg up on most USAians here, as I've tasted tunicate, one of the non-vertebrate chordates. Salty and fishy, otherwise unremarkable. Mollusca is Phylum #2--delicious bivalves, cephalopods and gastropods. Phylum #3 is Arthopoda; most Americans only eat crustaceans, but I've also eaten insects (although molecular evidence suggests that Insecta might merely be a sub-category of Crustacea).

Today, I ate a member of a fourth phylum. Uni, the gonads of a sea urchin (as it's pretty much the only edible meat on one).

How was it?

Dreadful.

Uni has a mellow flavor, not unpleasant. Salty and fishy, which makes sense. Redolent of the sea. The real problem, though, is the texture. It's cold, a little slimy, and firm, but yielding. Basically, imagine a flan that tastes like fish. Not too appealing, is it? Heather and I posited that it might work well in a stew, either dissolving to add a thickening and flavoring, or sliced into little strips amongst other ingredients. On its own, though, in a big buttery chunk in nigiri? Awful.

So I'm one phylum up on most Americans. Next stop... Annelida?

Into the Wee Hours...

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:59:08 GMT

It is, as I type this, 5:57 AM.

I have not been able to go to sleep tonight.

However, I have managed to, in between episodes of The Venture Brothers and putting away dishes, write five pages about Paranthropus boisei and its diet, despite the fact that the scientific community has not actually done any research on this, merely giving the impression that they know what they're talking about.

Now, to sleep for three hours before I have to get up to go to class.

Goddamn.

Well, damn.

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:03:10 GMT

Many others may have said it more eloquently, but still, I must say it.

RIP Gary Gygax.

You will be missed.

Whew. That was a close one

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:25:46 GMT

So I woke up slightly before my alarm at 10:30 today, got up, started going online: my usual morning routine.

And then I realized, wait a minute. It's Wednesday.

The day when I have section at 11.

Where a huge paper is due.

That I forgot to finish the busy-work "library assignment" that went along with it.

In fifteen minutes.

So, I powered through the busy work, threw on pants, got there only ten minutes late, and only because there was a bus that was as late as I was.

Goddamn.

Back for a Meme

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:26:31 GMT

A weird one.

26

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

So, let me tell you about my D&D game...

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:37:15 GMT

This'll be long.

I'm actually running a couple of D&D games at the moment. Starting in the order of when I started running them, there's a game I'm running in Berkeley for my girlfriend and the rest of the Berkeley cohort. So far, it's just GameMastery Module D2: Seven Swords of Sin. I've augmented it a little here and there, but mostly it's straight from the book. And a lot of fun. Goofy, pulpy, dirty-joke-filled D&D, the way it apparently used to be.

Second is the game I'm running in Rohnert Park. Mostly all the same players. For that game, since all of the players are pretty much new to D&D, I've approached each session with a few design philosophies in mind:

1) Every session incorporates one (1) level worth of experience. So far, since they've been low level and the games have lasted ~8 hours each, that's been fairly easy. Just ignore the 13 1/3 encounters party line and ramp up the difficulty. I've always preferred a playstyle of less, more difficult encounters anyway. And so far, it's pretty successful. Each new session includes some new toys for all of the PCs to play with, as they try out new feats, spells, class abilities, etc.

2) Introduce a D&D classic, generally as a "random encounter" towards the beginning of the session. Not really pertinent to the plot of the adventure, but just to show off the Iconic D&D Bestiary. So far, the Iconic Beasties have been a cave fisher, a displacer beast and an owlbear. And, let me tell you, seeing the joy on player's faces as they're experiencing their first owlbear is a warm, loving experience.

3) Incorporate a different theme into each session. I've run three games so far. The first was a good ol' Underdark expedition, in the Descent into the Depths of the Earth tradition. The second was the Dungeon module "Home Under the Range", a Underdark Western. Last session was, in the spirit of Halloween, a dark fairy tale with hags, satyrs and crazy thorn men.

I really like that game.

Game No. Three is my Regular Davis D&D Game, featuring almost exclusively veterans from the rest of my college years. Because coming up with original material every week is hard, and because I love the product, I'm running them through Rise of the Runelords. We're only two sessions in, and it's been going really well so far. Lots of RP, and the adjustments I've had to make to a six-player group have, so far, seemed fair and workable.

The best part of my Rise of the Runelords game is the cast of PCs. Not since my Planescape game have I witnessed a group this odd, which is good. Especially since they all work fairly well together, the party's nicely balanced (I can't remember the last time I ran a game for a well-balanced party), and are pretty damn funny. And everyone's settled nicely back into the groove of being 1st level, which I was worried was going to be sort of a let-down after their party of 20th level ass-kickers put down Kyuss.

They're entering their first dungeon tomorrow. Adventurers grow up so fast these days...

It's a Skin Condition!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:29:38 GMT

OK, here we go. Actual post time.

Now, I wouldn't say I've been blessed with perfect health. I'm always in some stage or other of sniffly throughout the winter, and my childhood was punctuated with annual doses of the flu (I haven't had the flu in years, and I've never had a shot for it, so I assume my antibodies are doing something right). But, with the exception of a bug that had me bedridden for two and a half weeks when I was 10 or so (I suspect mono), I've never had anything remotely serious. Even my teeth are good.

Until now.

Coming back to Davis from a jaunt home last weekend, I noticed a painful spider bite on my back. Red, lumpy, very sensitive. I assumed it was just a particularly nasty spider, and didn't think much of it.

By Monday, it was a few centimeters long and hurt so much I couldn't lay on my back.

By Tuesday, it was radiating heat.

By this time, I realized something was wrong.

I did a little bit of Internet Doctor, and diagnosed myself with cellulitis. A staph or strep infection of the lower skin, with symptoms identical to the ones I had, plus or minus the presence of fever, which I didn't have. Treatable by antibiotics. Potentially able to bloom into necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating bacterial disease.

So I went to the doctor. Yes, it was cellulitis. Yes, I'm on antibiotics, and am applying hot compresses. Yes, it's getting a lot better. Much of the pain now stems from the first degree burn on the area inflicted by me getting a little zealous with the hot compresses.

Thoughts on a Lunch

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:23:43 GMT

So, this morning I swung by Crepeville to grab a bit to eat - left the house without getting breakfast, and I'd heard good things about their salads. Now, I only discovered Crepeville recently, by which I mean I discovered it had great tea. Even if the food was swill, and it isn't, I'd still go there every once in a while for a copper pot full of piping hot, loose leaf Darjeeling.

During my lunch today, I discovered a few things:

1) I apparently have a very mild case of synasthesia - tastes trigger musical associations. Or perhaps it's just the Earl Grey talking; its bitterness was high and reedy, like the oboe.

2) I'm new to the whole salad experience (as mentioned previously), so every salad is a learning experience. Today I learned not to get the mixed greens at Crepeville. I was digging the salad a lot - the spinach and red lettuce played well with the balsamic vinegarette, with mozzarella slices mixed in. Mmm. Except!

Their definition of "mixed greens" is about 60% dandelion.

Now, I've done enough weeding in my life. I do not associate dandelions with food. I associate them with dirt, sweat and corruption. They're the wrong sort of bitter. Discordant.

It may seem weird that I'm blogging about a bad salad I had, especially when other occurences of import are also going on. But that's a different post...

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:04:56 GMT

There's a thunderstorm going on outside!

...

Awesome!